Reckoning of the Awakened Vengeful Ancient
by razer666L
Summary: Throughout his life, the only thing he knows about is war. Even when he lived as a Prothean warrior in the Empire; when he died as a thrall for the Reapers; and when he was "awakened" as a seeker of vengeance. When he finds himself in the so-called "Land of Illusions", would he able find a new purpose for his life? Or would he create another incident unlike any other by himself?
1. Prologue

Whether it was due to the nasty violation of undiscovered and unexplained laws of spacetime physics by any uncontrollable cosmic variables, or it was because of the incomprehensible fate given by the Higher Powers in the universe, he did not know. He could not figured out of where he was or how did he get here in the first place.

Three minutes ago, the Awakened Collector, who knew himself as Atala but known to his teammates as "Buggy", was fighting alongside his multiracial organic and synthetic special forces team against a company-sized Reaper ground troops within a 390 meter tall office building, specifically within the building's 57th floor, in the city known as Nagano, located in the island nation called Japan at planet Earth, the homeworld of the allied human race.

Their mission in Nagano was to buy the local Resistance Force the time they need to gather extremely valuable intel from a dead Reaper Destroyer, which was destroyed earlier by the Resistance.

Everyone who had participated in the mission, including the Systems Alliance frigate SSV _Red Cliffs_ that provided transportation for the team, expected it would be another simple hit-and-run strikes and last for a day, just like any other N7 operations the Citadel Allied Command sent to them.

In contrast, it became a brutal fight for survival against unexpectedly smart and increasingly competent Reaper troops with their highly coordinated attacks.

That, along with the mission suddenly lasted for a full week instead a day. Worse, the team's frigate was shot down by dozens of Reaper Oculi and crashed somewhere in a mountain valley near the city of Kōfu in the third day when it was giving close air support for the team.

At the seventh day of the operation, the team faced significantly heavy and repeated Reaper infantry attacks, which tested both mental and physical fortitude of the team's organic members.

Coincidentally, it was also the day during the entire Allied Fleets were engaging the Reaper Fleet guarding the planet Earth. And at the same where a major ground battle was occurring between the Allied Hammer ground forces and the Reaper army in London, located at the other side of the planet.

Everyone on the ground and in space were fighting hard for their very lives as they placed their faith on the Crucible superweapon to destroy the Reapers and end the cycle of extinction.

For once and for all.

**## ## ## ## ## ## ##**

"Ya Allah! Hey, I need medi-gel here! Anybody!"

A male human Alliance soldier was shouting for any of his teammate that could hear his voice in the midst of a loud and intense gunfight between the relentless Reaper hordes and a truly stubborn Allied Special Forces team that consisted of two human Alliance Soldiers, one N7 Demolisher Engineer, an asari Justicar Vanguard, a turian Armiger Legion Engineer, a batarian Enforcer Soldier, one geth Hunter Infiltrator, and last but not least, the most bizarre of them all: an Awakened Collector Adept.

The Alliance soldier was doing his best to keep the turian engineer lying on the floor from suffering severe blood loss as he keep pressing both of his hands at a gunshot wound in the abdomen that the turian received earlier by a Cannibal. Both the human and the turian had used up all of their medi-gel supplies at the wounded civilians that both them and the Awakened Collector had encountered earlier in a bunker when the entire team was completely separated by a well-crafted Reaper ambush and a building rigged with explosives, which the Reaper troops detonated to sent it crashing down on them, despite the enemies ultimately had missed their targets.

The male batarian soldier, who had just gave a Cannibal before him a headshot with his Kishock Harpoon Gun, heard the human soldier's call for aid. He quickly abandoned his personal defensive position which was a flipped over office table and made a dash towards the injured turian's side, who was lying on the floor.

The batarian looked directly at the human soldier kneeling beside the turian. "Mousavi, where are your medi-gels?"

"Me and Stanyx used them all to the injured civvies we ran into before meeting you guys here!" The male human soldier continued to apply more pressure to the gunshot wound of his turian teammate named Stanyx with his both hands without even bother to move his face towards the batarian as more blood were gushing out from the turian's injury.

"_You did what!?_ Ah, fuck it!" The batarian hastily activated his omni-tool at his right arm and applied his medi-gel to the turian engineer's wound, where it immediately worked its magic to seal the serious injury. Both the batarian and the human carefully lifted the wounded turian from the floor, placed the engineer's arms around their shoulders and moved him behind the upturned office desks the team had set up earlier.

"Eat this, you bastards!" The female N7 Demolisher rose from behind her cover and launched her homing grenade from her specialized omni-tool on her right arm to a group of seven husks charging towards the team's position from the opposite end of the office floor.

The seeking grenade instantly tracked down a target in the middle of the group while in mid-air. The moment after the grenade made contact with the target, it caused a massive explosion that blew the targeted husk apart and the other surrounding husks in the group thrown away by the blast.

However, behind the location of the charred remains of the husks, a group of seven Cannibals came out from the emergency fire exit door, the same place where the last group of husks came earlier. In fact, all of the Reaper troops the team had killed previously came through that same door.

The asari Justicar Vanguard behind the flipped office desk quickly unleashed a biotic shockwave to the Cannibal group that sent them into the air before they fell to the floor, while being enveloped by the biotic residues of the shockwave that glowed in purple.

This gave the Awakened Collector Adept, who was covering behind a cupboard lying on the floor, a chance to launch a biotic warp to the Cannibals that tried to rise up from the earlier biotic shockwave. The combination of negatively charged biotic residues on the Cannibals, and the positively charged biotic warp used by Atala resulted in a huge biotic explosion that ripped the fleshes off from their synthetic bodies, and throwing them dead across the floor.

Nevertheless, one Cannibal survived the explosion and it began to rise up to continue attacking the team, only it received a coup de grâce in the head which came from a geth plasma shotgun, where it fired a single shot from a distance by the geth Hunter Infiltrator known by the rest as "Vertex" from behind the cover.

"Last Cannibal eliminated," it stated with its usual emotionless electronic tone while staring at the batarian husk's headless body.

"Ah shit. That was just the third wave." A tired female human Alliance Soldier with stood up behind her own overturned office desk while she ejected a spent thermal clip from her M-76 Revenant light machine gun. "More of them will come here soon, you know?" She stated directly to the asari justicar that stood a few feet from her.

"Yep, Dlamini's right. There are thousands of these husks flooding outside of the building below." The batarian soldier stood carefully at the edge of the glass-less window as he moved his head outside of the building and look downward to the ground.

He saw thousands of different variations of husks that almost looked like small shapeshifting dots gathering outside of the building's main entrance. The same building the team was occupying currently.

"And that's exactly what we want, Jeshar," the asari justicar replied as she continued to put several thermal clips into her Disciple shotgun. "We will give these Reaper troops a really good taste of their own medicine."

Everybody in the team knew exactly what she meant and they were pissed off by it. After they had battled their way through the streets of Nagano to lure the Reaper troops onto them while giving the Resistance more time to extract data from a dead Reaper Destroyer, an 8-storey building was intentionally exploded and crashed nearly onto them by Reaper forces.

Even though all of them managed to avoid from being flattened, the collapse of the building also divided the team into two; the Awakened Collector known as Atala while that the rest called him as "Buggy" quickly grabbed both Mousavi and Stanyx in a nick of time and brought them away from the collapsing building using a biotic charge.

After they were separated, Reaper troops began attacking them from the windows of nearby buildings but both separate teams eventually survived the ambushes and finished off the attackers.

After she had finished reloading, the asari pushed a button on the right side of the shotgun and the weapon produced a distinctive whine sound effect. "Basilio, are you sure that both you and Stanyx had rigged the entire 1st floor?" She shifted her gaze to the human N7 Demolisher standing beside her.

The N7 Demolisher casually gave the asari justicar a thumbs-up. "Don't worry, Seiren. Both of us, along with Vertex and Buggy, had placed the explosives at the floor's strategic structures and carefully hid them from being discovered."

She then activated her omni-tool to actuate the supply pylon she set up earlier behind the team's barricades to generate ammo and grenades for each of the teammates. The last wave had caused them to nearly depleted of their ammunition.

But in the case of Atala, he did not need thermal clips as his unique Prothean and Collector weapons were using traditional heat sinking method. The only thing he was concerned about was to restock the frag grenades he ran out currently.

"Good. Since Stanyx is seriously injured, you'll be the one taking care of detonate them." Seiren then placed her sight towards the Awakened Collector. "Buggy. Since you're the only one in the team who can fly, I need you to go prepare our extraction plan. Now."

The Awakened Collector Atala or "Buggy" nodded and quickly walked in a fast pace to the glass-less window. He then spread his synthetic hindwings, grabbed a rope where its end was knotted tightly to a large steel screw hook and quickly jumped off the office building. The moment he was in mid-air, Atala's wings instantly beat at a rapid rate and flied off to the adjacent tall building across the street, particularly to the building's 49th floor.

After landed at the 49th floor through the glass-less windows, the Awakened Collector thrust the hook's sharp end to the concrete floor, but only 1/3 of the hook's length was embedded into the floor. Atala stomped the hook in order to bury it further and the hook was fixed firmly into the floor. He then applied omni-gel around the hook so that it would not easily come off.

After it was done, Atala flied back to the office building and arrived at the 57th floor, where he found the other end of the rope was wound around a metal poll that was recently placed by Vertex, the geth Hunter Infiltrator, who was holding the rope's end.

_Damn synthetic, why can't they call this thing "Rustbucket" or some shit_, Atala thought.

The Awakened Collector gave the geth hunter before him a nod and a trill, which Vertex logically took them as: "The hook is secured. Taut the rope now."

"Affirmative, Buggy-Collector." Vertex pulled the rope and it became stretched tight, which the geth quickly tied the cord's end into a tight knot on the metal poll. "Extraction plan is prepared, Seiren-Justicar."

The team's extraction plan was actually to zipline themselves to the adjacent building located just 60 meters across the street and once everyone was in the safe place, they would immediately blow the office building they came from in order to bury and kill thousands of husks under the heavy debris. In case of the Awakened Collector, however, he just have to fly away to the extraction point.

"Well done," Seiren nodded in satisfaction. She then turned her attention towards the human N7 Demolisher. "Basilio. Deploy a few of your "suicide drones". Armed them with high-explosive mods and place them near the fire exit door," she ordered.

"Got it, ma'am." Basilio activated her omni-tool to create five red-colored, omni-gel-based holographic drones which were called either as "suicide drones" or "kamikaze drones", where their role, as the names obviously suggested, was to move slowly or fast, and seek out targets, usually at their last known position. When a target entered its detection range, the drones would kamikaze towards its target, dealing heavy damage.

The kamikaze drones she deployed could be armed with different mods such as high-explosive, overload, warp, cryo, incineration or acid.

After the kamikaze drones were in place in front of the fire exit, and half of the team were standing near the glass-less window and the taut rope with their hooks prepared in their hands, with the exception of Atala, all teammates and the rest of Allied Forces on Earth and in the planet's orbit suddenly received a confirmation from their radio that the Crucible was successfully docked with the Citadel, minutes after someone had been reported to had made it to the Conduit located in the center of London in order to open the Citadel's closed arms.

"Hey Stanyx. Can you walk, man?" The human soldier Mousavi stooped beside the turian engineer who was siting and recuperating behind the flipped office desk.

"Ugh," Stanyx groaned in pain behind his fully sealed helmet. "Those Reapers gonna need more than a shot in my belly to took me down," he pointed out. "Walk? Yes. Run? Shit, with a wound like this and the pain it'll make... Not a chance, buddy." The turian outstretched his right arm upward to Mousavi to help him stand up.

Stanyx' hand was grabbed, but instead of Mousavi, who was just about to extend his right arm, it was Atala the Awakened Collector that grabbed Stanyx' hand, which surprised both the turian and the human a bit. Stanyx was then lifted from the floor and walked lamely to the taut rope after both he and Mousavi gave the Awakened Collector a nod of appreciation.

"Right. I'll go first and secure the extraction point." The human soldier Dlamini placed her hook onto the rope, with a carbon nanotube wire was tied from her utility belt to the hook she held on firmly.

"I'll see you guys at the side." Dlamini then ran out of the building through the open window and made a zipline through the air towards the adjacent building before her. The female human reached the open window and landed her feet on the floor, inside the building's 49th floor.

She released the hook, untied the wire from her belt, quickly pulled out her M-76 Revenant LMG and went to check the surrounding empty floor. "Dlamini has landed. Extraction point is secured. No signs of hostiles here," she contacted Seiren via her helmet's personal communicator.

"Copy that." The asari Justicar put down her left index finger from the headset in her left ear and faced the batarian that stood at her left side. "Jeshar, you're next."

As the batarian soldier readied his hook on the rope, the N7 Demolisher's omni-tool began to beeping loudly and she quickly raised her right arm to take a look at it. At the same time, all five of her kamikaze drones suddenly entered swiftly into the fire exit.

"Ah fuck," Basilio cursed as she looked at the fire exit. A few seconds later, powerful explosions that came from within the fire exit stairs shook the entire floor the team was standing on, which caused them to nearly stumbled to the floor. "Damn! Those bastards are climbing the stairs faster than we thought!"

"And that means we need to move fast, damn it!" Jeshar growled hurriedly. He immediately ran out of the window and made a zipline to the building across the street.

"Goddess damn them!" Seiren gritted her teeth in frustration as Reaper troops were heading towards 57th floor faster than everyone had expected. "Mousavi! Stanyx! You guys are next! Go!"

"No need to tell us twice, ma'am!" Mousavi exclaimed. Both the human soldier and the turian engineer quickly hooked up to the rope and ran out to the window one after the other.

After she saw both men were in mid-air while ziplining to the adjacent building, Seiren turned her gaze to the N7 Demolisher. "Basilio! You're-"

"I get it!" Without any delay, Basilio hooked up to the rope and made a dash towards the open window. "Jesus! I really hate this kind of shiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-!" The human N7 Demolisher continued to curse loudly along the zipline in mid-air until she reached the 49th floor of the building.

After Basilio had made it, now it was the asari's turn. She placed her hook to rope then turned her sight to the Awakened Collector standing on the right side of her. "Okay, Buggy. You're ready?." Her response from the Awakened Collector was his hindwings that were immediately extended from his back and his nod. "Alright. Let's-"

Without finishing her words, a Marauder suddenly came out from the fire exit and fired a sustained automatic burst with its Phaeston assault rifle at Atala's back until his biotic barriers were depleted. Once they were depleted, several of the Marauder's rounds pierced through at Atala's hard chitinous back and hindwings that caused him to trilled loudly in great pain. The Marauder's attack left him severely wounded and his hindwings full of holes.

The moment the Awakened Collector knelt on the floor in serious pain, Seiren instantaneously unholstered her Acolyte heavy pistol and fired a single advanced projectile at the Marauder's right shoulder. Once the Acolyte's resonant warp bomb-like projectile made contact with the turian husk's kinetic shields, it triggered a detonation so strong that the blast it created sent the Marauder smacked to the wall behind him, where the impact instantly broke its skull and severely damaged its brain, killing it immediately.

As Atala was about to stand up, he saw Seiren holstered her pistol back to her left waist and extended her right arm to the kneeling Awakened Collector. He even saw her very fearful and worried expression etched on the asari's face. "Buggy! Grab my hand!"

When Atala's right hand was reaching to the asari's, a Cannibal came out from the fire exit and fired a short burst of high caliber rounds at the asari. Several slugs bounced and weakened Seiren's biotic barriers rapidly until it became depleted, leaving her completely exposed as the final slug hit the justicar in the exposed right side part of her stomach. The Cannibal's heavy caliber slug hit right at her "soft" ballistic bodysuit instead the light armor's abdominal piece.

"Arrgh!" Seiren screamed in agony as she was shot in the stomach by the Cannibal.

The Awakened Collector turned his head to the left, where once his three left eyes saw the Cannibal located far behind his left, Atala's left arm was shrouded with green biotic aura and immediately stretched it out towards the batarian husk behind him.

He then fired a biotic flare to the Cannibal, which unleashed a huge, bright green explosion that threw it away and simultaneously shredded the fleshes of the Cannibal within its range, causing massive damage to the batarian husk and killed it.

Atala turned his attention to the asari Justicar in front of him. He could see purple blood flowing down on her light armor's abdominal piece from the bullet wound she sustained. The Awakened Collector knew Seiren was suffering an agonizing pain just by looking at her facial expression; every inch of muscle in her face became strained, her eyes were shut tightly with tears escaped from them and her teeth were gritting firmly.

Seiren quickly activated her omni-tool on her left arm to put medi-gel on her wound, sealing it completely and prevent more blood from further flowing out.

After Atala finally stood up on his two feet, he unexpectedly heard loud howls and growls that were unique to husks which came from the fire exit. The Awakened Collector expected that plenty of husks would come out from the fire exit door and they would completely overwhelm them if both of them did not start to escape quickly.

He saw that Seiren still had her hook hanging onto the rope and she held it with her right hand. With several husks now emerged from the fire exit and started to charge towards both of them, without thinking twice, Atala biotically pushed Seiren out of the window and let gravity did the rest.

He was then immediately pounced by two husks from behind and they pushed him along with themselves off from the open window, which caused Atala and the two husks to fall towards the ground. Atala swore in his mind he that could clearly hear the asari shouted his nickname loudly as he fell.

**## ## ## ## ## ## ##**

As they fell towards the sidewalk below, Atala managed to killed both husks by using his organic blade; he sunk his blade into a husk's head while beheaded the other one in mid-air. The Awakened Collector could not fly up to meet up with rest of his team, or in order to land safely on the ground as his wings were severely damaged by the Marauder's Phaeston assault rifle. He would ended up splat and die upon hitting the hard surface.

However, as he was falling, he saw a 5-storey building located across the road of the tall building. That instantly gave Awakened Collector an idea: he would use the biotic charge to propel himself to the roof of the small building and land on it safely upon reaching the 10th floor from the ground.

While he prepared to use the biotic charge, a wall of blue-colored energy pulse as tall as the sky itself was heading towards the city from the east at high speed. By the time Atala reached the 10th floor, he biotically charged towards the small building. At the same time, the 1st floor of the office building behind him suddenly exploded. The blast weakens the tall structure's critical supports to the point that it could no longer withstand the force of gravity and the building began to collapse under its own weight.

In a brief moment of time, as the Awakened Collector traveled in mid-air in a mass-free "corridor", the energy pulse hit him and disrupted his surrounding natural mass effect fields, which had caused Atala's biotics to become dampened and the Earth's force of gravity began to pulled him again to the surface straight downward, instead of diagonal. But as he fell, Atala instantly noticed something was not right after the energy pulse had passed through him.

Earlier, he saw only but dark clouds during daytime, heavily broken roads, damaged buildings, debris, wrecked skycars and fires of different sizes littered the streets. But after the pulse passed through him, however, he saw trees. Green trees. And that was not all, as his peripheral vision caught something very bizarre.

The sky he saw was not daylight. It was...

Night...

...under the bright moonlight.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**The Awakened Collector's name, _Atala_, means "Resolute" in Gujerati language in India. ****Similar how the name _Javik_, the Prothean squadmate in ME3, is translated from Hindi language as "Biological" or "Organic".**

**Also, I may need someone who is an expert in Touhou and its Spell Card System to PM with in FanFiction. That, along with a guy/girl who is an expert in Mass Effect and its biotics.**

**Constructive reviews are welcomed, while the flaming, negative-toned ones will be deleted on sight. Just so you know.**


	2. Mushroom-Headed Bug Youkai

He fell through the canopy of leaves, hitting many tree branches and landed ungraciously to the ground with a thud back-first. He could not move for a few seconds because of the terrible pain enveloping him; Atala back-first landing only made the pain caused by the untreated gunshot wound at his back to became awfully painful to him. After a few seconds, Atala began to lift his upper body up slowly and painfully until he was in a sitting position.

The Awakened Collector activated his omni-tool at his left arm to apply medi-gel at his injured back, and then later to put some omni-gel at his damaged synthetic hindwings to repair it.

Luckily, Atala's very durable and dense chitinous exoskeleton plates that protect most of his body and limbs absorbed the kinetic energy impacts of the tree branches and the ground, where he eventually came out unscathed and allowed him not to waste anymore of his scarcely supply of medi-gel for the moment. Atala looked at his omni-tool screen and discovered that he presently had 8 out of 9 medi-gel units in his multipurpose handheld device.

After applied both of them to his injured back and damaged hindwings, Atala took a time to look at his surroundings. What he found rather concerned and confused him. From what he knew about Earth from the extranet and holo-pictures from the mission briefings, he saw images of nearly all of the planet's land surfaces of different environments, except in the polar regions, to become desolate, barren, scorched and lifeless by the Reaper's magnetohydrodynamic guns.

His mission on Earth in Japan was the hard proof of that fact.

But here, it was the complete opposite. Everything here was so rich of life; grass, trees, green plants of different species everywhere. The sounds of insects, possibly crickets, and birds chirping, echoed through the forest. And then it was nighttime with the moonlight shone the night, with the clear sky filled with stars. Back then, it was daytime morning and the sky was filled with thick smoke and dark clouds.

Atala mentally groaning in pain as he began to stood up to his feet. He activated his omni-tool to contact any Allied Forces unit or anyone he could in the area and beyond. Instead, he was greeted only with static. He tried switching it to an open broadcast channel and it detected nothing, not even the slightest indication of any radio signal. Apparently, there was not any bit of electronic technology, both modern and the earliest, for hundreds of kilometers around the area he stood in.

Disappointed, yet not giving up, he deactivated his omni-tool and started to walk forward, hopefully to find any sign of civilization. His wings were still not in the suitable condition for flight for the moment, therefore walking was Atala's best option of transportation for the moment.

The Awakened Collector did not even have to worry about getting tired, hungry and thirsty; to eat, drink and sleep because while his outside body appeared to be organic, his insides, however, were all made from synthetic materials and cybernetic parts.

It made him more of machine within while "wearing" the external covers of semi-organic flesh and tissue, all thanks to the enemies he despised the most in existence: the Reapers.

He was able to walk through the forest easily, partly because of the light of the full moon, and mostly due to his six cybernetic ocular implants which enabled him to had significantly increased visual perception and to be able see clearly in low-light environment. When it comes to total darkness, however, this problem could be solved with microscopic infrared emitters implanted in each of his cybernetic eyes.

Atala had walked for nearly 35 minutes without encountering anything worth of interest; all of the things in front of him and as far his eyes could see were nothing but trees.

While walking, Atala raised his right hand in front of his face and generated his biotic's dark energy field which enveloped his hand. He wanted to make sure his biotics did not being dampened by the strange energy pulse earlier in Nagano.

As he was looking at his own minor biotic display before him, Atala's enhanced hearing caught a faint sound which was something like a child's scream coming from the woods far in front of him. He instinctively sprinted towards the origin of the scream with speed of a well-fit athlete in a 100-metre dash.

Then, he spotted someone in the forest at a distance. The Awakened Collector began to slowed down his pace until he stopped behind a tree to get a better look. Atala focused his sight to the unknown individual where he discovered that person was a child, a boy.

A young human boy, which was probably seven or eight years old if Atala was not mistaken, with short black hair and wore grey-colored attires that appeared to be strange, very less modern and yet vaguely similar to the clothes commonly worn by average Prothean civilians in its basic design as far as he could remember. Moreover, he also saw the boy wore a pair of... _Wooden sandals?_ Atala did not know the boy was wearing a yukata and a pair of geta, a type of traditional Japanese garment and footwear.

Apart from that, Atala saw the boy was running with a fearful look on his face, as if he was chased by something or someone. While running, the boy turned his head to look back at the forest behind him, probably his chasers. Because the boy was not careful of looking down the earth ahead of him for any object before he turned his eyes away from the front, the boy tripped a surface tree root and fell face-first to ground.

The boy's face winced in pain and tears formed in his eyes as he lifted himself up and turned his body around. He saw his knees were injured and had small lacerations on them due the fall and the rough surfaces of the soil scraped the knees' skin.

As the boy held his injured knees, both him and the Awakened Collector, stood a few meters behind the human child and lurked behind a tree and the bushes, heard the sound of the nearby bushes rustling meters in front of the boy. The rustling was getting louder as each seconds passed by. As Atala focused his sight to the bushes, a human hand with long, sharp fingernails suddenly emerged from them.

Immediately afterward, three humanoid male figures came out from the bushes and wearing garments similar to the boy's but with different colors for each of them: red, blue and green. A person with average visual acuity may saw these male figures as humans from afar.

But not for Atala and his enhanced vision, however, as what he saw from those three men were not appeared fully human. Their faces were like human but somehow feral-looking and possessed amber eyes gleaming with malice, dark brown facial marks, a pair of sharp fangs, along with long pointed ears. Atala never encountered humans with such features in his time in the human frigate SSV _Red Cliffs_ and with his human squadmates prior being sent into enemy lines.

He wondered whether these men were actually came from an offshoot subspecies of the human race that became extinct prior to the humans' discovery of mass effect physics and technology on Mars through the ruins left by his people 50,000 years ago. Or the entire offshoot race was sent into exile to a star system or anywhere far away from the human home system of Sol due to racially related reasons or conflicts.

"Hey, kid. You've been a very bad boy tonight, aren't ya?" the man with the red garment asked with a growling tone while smiling wickedly at the frightened child.

Atala heard and understood the language that man spoke as Human Japanese because of his built-in auto-translator that instantly translated the language the moment those Japanese words were spoken from that man's mouth.

"Yeah, you shouldn't sneaking around and playing in the forest at evening, you know? Or else you'll end up becoming some youkai's prey and dinner." The one with the blue garment said with a toothy, predatory grin.

"Luckily for us, we are that said "youkai" and we're preeetty hungry tonight. He he." The one in green garment smiled viciously at their pathetic prey.

_Youkai... so that's what those offshoots called themselves. And what in the low ethereal do they meant by "prey", "dinner" and "hungry"?_ The Awakened Collector thought analytically at the youkai's words.

Earlier, Atala saw the boy ran as if he was being chased by something, and it turned out to be these three strange-looking human offshoots. After they arrived at the scene, these men talked to the boy as if the child was nothing more than...

A sudden and shocking realization came to Atala's mind. _Don't tell me that these "youkai" consume humans as food!? Were pre-spaceflight humans on Earth really that... cannibalistic? _

Slaughtering animals, that couldn't speak intelligibly and generally had quite low-level intelligence, for nourishment was one thing. But to kill the sentient ones that were smart, capable of showing clear emotions and could talk back at you? Even if they were of your own species, especially the closely-related offshoot ones?

Atala found the idea really off-putting for him; about two levels below the "_being turned into "DNA milkshakes" alive as materials to construct a Reaper core_", and the "_realization that you are now a grotesque-looking, synthetic undead Reaper abomination but with self-consciousness_".

"If you don't struggle, kid, your death would be quick and painless." The red-clothed youkai and the other two behind him slowly approaching the petrified, tearful child on the ground. "I can assure you that you won't feel anything while we devour your sweet, tender flesh." He grinned while licked his lips at the sight of their living food.

Atala's right hand began to sink its claws into the trunk of the tree he stood behind with anger at these youkai and their clear intention to eat this child. _Damn it, I don't care if this is a bizarre, unfathomable ancient human Earth custom to eat each other's species. This is just... not right! I can't allow this to happen!_

As the three youkai were a couple of meters away the human boy, they suddenly heard the bushes behind the child rustled loudly and began to lift their heads from their human prey to the bushes in front of them. What those youkai saw behind the bushes instantly froze their movement, and their faces quickly changed from a combined expressions of delectation and maliciousness, into a more shocked and terrified one. All three of them shared the same thoughts concerning to the single thing they saw before their widen eyes.

_What in the netherworld is that thing!?_

The human boy was, while still scared, confused at the youkai's sudden halt of their movements and how swift at their expressions changed. It was even more obvious that the three youkai's heads and eyes suddenly focused on not at the boy, but rather at something behind him. He slowly turned his head back and above him. What the boy saw behind him truly terrified him enough to shriek loudly in response.

They saw a large, wide-shouldered figure that resembled a nearly seven feet tall human-sized bipedal insect with a pale brown-colored chitinous exoskeleton and exposed crimson muscles or tendons, two anterior pairs of what appeared to be vestigial limbs, six pupil-less glowing milky eyes, a pair of hands with three proportionately thick fingers with sharp claws and a distinct, large, tapering head that looked almost like a distorted mushroom. Not only that, as the tall figure fixed its six eyes towards the three youkai, its entire body began to shrouded by some sort of translucent green flames or auras.

"What... what kind of a creature is this!?" The green-clothed youkai raised and pointed his right index finger towards the monstrous figure.

"Is it a youkai?" The blue-clothed one whispered next the red-clothed youkai.

"I... I'm not sure. I've never seen a youkai like this in my entire life!"

The "youkai" Awakened Collector began to trilled coarsely at the trembled three youkai before him, which caused to them to fidgeted significantly on the spot. Atala's markedly off-putting and inhuman-like appearance led the three youkai to assumed that the creature before them was probably some kind of a highly rare "arch-youkai", a powerful class of youkai that was in its "pure and true" form rather than the more human-like appearance of the rest.

The "arch-youkai" trilled coarsely again, and this time it pulled out a large, exotic-looking blade from its right waist with its left hand. The nervous youkai trio thought that both the trill and the large blade the "arch-youkai" produced earlier indicate that they were meant as "THIS HUMAN IS MINE TO DEVOUR!".

With the ideas of a highly powerful and terrifying "pure" youkai before them, the menacing green flames shrouding its body, and the large blade it produced already implanted in their mind instantly suggested them to back off, leave the child in its possession and immediately run away from the creature as average youkai like them had zero chance of surviving a fight against this dreadful creature.

The red-clothed youkai gulped and nervously held up his hands in a defensive manner. "Uh... um... The-the kid is... yours to take alone, oh mighty youkai. We... we shall leave you to your feast right now, y-yes?" He stuttered and smiled awkwardly at the imposing Awakened Collector.

Atala trilled loudly and menacingly at the youkai trio as he thrust his head forward a little in order to emphasize his main point, which to them it could be perceived as "GET OUT OF HERE!". All three youkai startled at the Awakened Collector's loud trill and immediately turned their backs to the creature and ran away as fast as they could before the trio would further incurred the wrath of the "arch-youkai" and be smitten by it.

Even though he did not get his chance to end the lives of those "cannibals", Atala somehow felt glad that he did not had to spill blood in front of the young human.

**## ## ## ## ## ## ##**

After the three youkai disappeared into the darkness of the forest, the Awakened Collector put back his organic blade at his right waist and the green aura that surrounded his body dissipated the moment he relaxed his biotics.

Atala turned his attention to the injured human boy and gazed upon the child who was sitting on the ground in front of him. The boy just sat there shivering in fear and did not do any movements but staring at the tall, intimidating and freakishly-looking "youkai" in front him with a very terrified expression. That along with the streams of tears fell from his eyes as byproducts of his own feelings of dread to the creature before him.

The Awakened Collector approached slowly to the boy and yet the young human still did not move an inch, probably because the child was too scared to move, which could make Atala's job to treat to boy's injury a lot easier than he would had expected.

After he reached the boy's spot, Atala knelt down on his right knee, facing him with dimly glowing, yet soulless stares and silence. The young boy flinched as the Awakened Collector gently grabbed his wrists and slowly pulled his hands that held the injured knees away from them.

After the knees were revealed to him, the Awakened Collector activated his omni-tool at his left arm. The sudden materialization of the brightly glowing, warm orange-yellow color of the holographic display at Atala's forearm caused the boy to gasped and fidgeted a little. Yet the warm, bright display of the device appeared to had calmed the boy and attracted the boy's attention as he gawked at the supposed "magic" at work.

The Awakened Collector placed small but adequate amount of medi-gel on both of the child's injured knees, which gave him an odd tingling, yet relief feeling with an instantaneous pleasant, cooling sensation which instantly dissipate the stinging, painful sensation of his knees.

While the human boy was surprised by the "healing magic" cast by the creature, and at the same time puzzled by the "youkai's" benign and helpful act, the Awakened Collector lifted the child into his arms, with the young boy's head rested at his left bicep, his left forearm supporting the child's back and his right forearm carrying the legs.

Atala then carried him to the depths of the woods with the intention to return the boy to either his parents, any relatives or humans that recognized him, or any human that would willingly took him in if he was an orphan or did not had any relative yet.

While Atala was thinking and walking through the woods with a human boy in his arms, the Awakened Collector's mind snapped to attention when the boy began to ask him in a slightly reluctant tone and with a concerned look. "Are you... are you going to bring me to... mama and papa?"

_So the boy do have parents. This makes things easier for me. Although..._ Although Atala quickly realized that he did not know where the boy's home was, or the location of the nearest human settlement. He mentally hit the back of his own large, scaly head for not think about that one issue earlier.

_Great, not only I can't speak verbally, my omni-tool probably don't have a Japanese keyboard input installed in it because none of the humans I met on the _Red Cliff_ were of ethnic Japanese! Damn it! Shit! Fuck!_ This would meant that he would had to rely on his body language, simple sign language and the boy's own intuition.

Therefore, he started by a single chirp in acknowledgement and shortly thereafter nodded his head to indicate it as "Yes" for the boy's question. The child's eyes began to gleamed in hope at the revelation that he would be able to return to his parents. Suddenly, the "youkai" stop walking and the human boy was confused at the abrupt halt of movement. "Why are we stopping?"

Atala, despite his previous life as an Imperial Sentinel and a less religious Prothean organic being before being captured alive by Reaper troops and converted into a husk, was praying to the Supreme Being that the young boy would understand the reason why he stopped walking. Not only that, he could not expect the child's young mind at his age to be bright enough to think critically or rationally. After more than 10 seconds of silence between them, the Awakened Collector's prayers was answered.

"Are you... You don't where my house is?"

The "youkai" nodded quickly at the young boy's question. The child then smiled modestly at Atala. "Don't worry. I know where it is. I'll show you the way."

The boy outstretched his left arm and raised his index finger to the forest before them. "We'll go this way, please."

Atala started walking through the forest by following the boy's direction. _He's well-mannered. Oh well, lead the way, kid. And let's hope we don't get lost._ Because if they did, it would be really bad for the boy to get stranded in the woods with him for hours or days without food and water. The child's health would become weakened while the Awakened Collector's would just stay healthy forever and ever.

"By the way, thanks for helping me back there. Also, my name is Daisuke. Saito Daisuke. What's yours?" The boy asked the "youkai" hopefully while Atala was traversing through the woods.

Atala could only respond Daisuke's question with his chirps and by shaking his head. It made the boy wondered with the Awakened Collector's head gestures. "You can't tell me your name?"

The "youkai" shook his head again to differ and made another chirps, which made Daisuke pondered on what it meant based on its head gesture and the inhuman voice it made. After seconds of careful thinking, he had his eureka moment. "You... you can't talk?"

Atala nodded and chirped in affirmation. "Oh. I'm sorry." The boy's face changed into an uneasy expression and bowed his head a little at the surprising discovery, thinking that he may had hurt the "youkai's" feeling for its inability to speak. Daisuke then raised his head and looked at the Awakened Collector. "But you do have a name, right?"

The "youkai" nodded, which answered Daisuke's question in the affirmative. Atala could only mentally sighed at his answer. How his answer was awfully related to the reality of his present condition. _My name is Atala, kid. But I'm no longer that same person anymore. I'm a walking perversion of the entire organic being in the galaxy that don't deserve a normal life. A normal identity. A name. I accepted those truths and I am whatever you want to call me. Buggy. Big Head. Six-Eyes. Bugbrain. Freak. Monster. ANYTHING. AND I DO NOT CARE. _

And it was all because of the Reapers he became like this. His identity as a Prothean, an organic, was completely robbed by them. He could not become the Prothean he was anymore.

The moment after Atala thought of himself and the ancient machine race with utter contempt, he did not realized the boy had an open-mouthed grin that was directed at him. Daisuke's next respond surprised him.

"That's great! That means you can an you will tell me your name, but in written form, once we get back to my parents, yes?" The boy smiled at the "youkai" and his face quickly changed into an expression of excitement and later contentment.

Atala mentally sighed again at the boy's innocent reaction, but in a good way and he replied his answer to the human child with a simple nod.

But to the Awakened Collector, it was a _half-assuring_ nod actually.

**## ## ## ## ## ## ##**

For the past 10 minutes, the human boy assisted the Awakened Collector navigating through the forest with the child pointing the direction need to be taken in order to walk out of the woods. The light of the full moon made the pointing and navigating activities a bit easier for the boy to see through the dark forest.

Finally, after 15 minutes of tireless walking and carrying at the same time, along with the full moon was finally covered by thick clouds, both the "youkai" and the young boy managed to came out of the forest and arrived at an empty, long straight dirt road at the edge of the woods.

The boy suddenly pointed his finger towards Atala's right side. "The Human Village is in that direction. My house is in there too."

Atala complied without hesitation and began walking to the direction the boy pointed. After walking down the dirt road for nearly 7 minutes, the Awakened Collector's enhanced cybernetic eyes spotted three small orbs of light coming from the far front of the road. As walked further towards the orbs, through his augmented hearing he heard faint voices coming from the same direction of the orbs.

The voices slowly became clearer as he continued to walk. Finally, Atala was able to hear the voices coming from the orbs clearly. The voices were... _Females?_

"Daisuke! Daisuke! Where are you?"

It was then followed by a male voice. "Daisuke! Shout if you can hear us, son!"

The Awakened Collector fixed his eyes toward the boy without having him to move his head as he walked. He guessed that those voices may belonged to Daisuke's parents who were searching for him._Huh. Congratulations, kid. I think we've may just found your parents._ Even from the distance of 50 meters, his enhanced eyesight enabled him to see nearly clear looks of the people behind the orbs, which he found them as wooden torches.

There was one adult human male who was in his early 30's, an adult human female in her late 20's of age, and the last one was a young adult human female who probably in her mid 20's.

Atala could see that both the adult man and woman wore the same type of garment as the boy and the earlier youkai wore. He accurately guessed that the two humans must had been his parents because of the resemblances between the boy and them. But the other lady, however, piqued the Awakened Collector's curiosity. This particular lady's appearance was different than the rest; an anomaly.

She had a long silver hair with blue highlights and wore a hat that looks like some kind of building with a red ribbon on top and glyphs inscribed along its side. Her dress, which was more modern-looking, was dark blue with white short sleeves, and a red ribbon was tied to the bottom of the collar. That along with she wore a pair of contemporary black human shoes with a pair red ribbons on top of them.

50 meters from both of their position, Daisuke finally heard the voices of the people who called out his name. Voices that he instantly recognized. "Those voices... That's my mama and papa!" The Awakened Collector continued to walk towards the group of three before him until he stopped around 30 meters from them. Atala then carefully lowered Daisuke until his feet touched the ground and stood up straight. He then gently pushed the boy's back, gesturing the young human to walk or run towards his parents.

And run the boy did. "Mama! Papa!" Daisuke cried at his parents before him as he ran towards them.

Both the parents quickly heard the voice of their child in the darkness before them, beyond the light of the wooden torches they held which surrounded them. A few seconds later, their boy Daisuke suddenly emerged in the range of the torches' light from the dark. "Daisuke!"

"Mama!" Daisuke ran towards his mother and his small arms quickly wrapped around her waist and his face rested upon the mother's abdomen. She then knelt down both of her knees and swiftly embraced her son firmly, with her chin rested on Daisuke's right shoulder and her eyes swell up in tears.

"Thank the Kami, you're alright!" The mother continued to hug her young boy, that she intently of never letting him go and losing the sight of him.

As both the mother and son hugged each other, Daisuke's father came and knelt to their side and gently caressing his son's head with his left hand. "You've made us and your sisters so worried at home, Daisuke," he said in a soft tone while smiled weakly.

"Really?" Daisuke asked as he turned his sight to the left, facing his father while his head still resting upon his mother's right shoulder. After he saw his father's smile of acknowledgment, Daisuke then turned his sight towards another figure behind his mother. He instantly recognized her as his teacher in the village's temple school, Kamishirasawa Keine. "Keine-sensei?"

"Thank the Dragon God, you're safe Daisuke." Keine sighed in relief with a worried expression while holding a torch with her left hand. "Anyway, are you hurt?"

"Well, I did hurt my knees when I-I was chased by three youkai that wanted to eat me in the forest," Daisuke said nervously and he could not expect what kind reactions he would get from his parents and his teacher. The worst he could thought of was being scolded by either of them.

Both Keine and Daisuke's father were shocked at the news that the boy was attacked by the youkai in the woods. Daisuke's mother, after she became dismayed by the revelation, quickly released her son from the embrace and look into Daisuke's knees. "Oh Kami! Did those youkai do anything to you? Did they harmed you?" she cried with a very worrying look at her son.

"No! Just when they're about to eat me, there was this big, scary-looking youkai suddenly came out of the bushes behind me and he scared them away," Daisuke explained to the adults with an enthusiastic tone. "This youkai looks like a big bug but can stand and walk on two feet like a person. He has two arms with three big fingers on each of them, his body is covered in... hard scales. Oh, and he has six glowing eyes with a _reaaally big head_ that looks like a mushroom," he described and emphasized the size of the "youkai's" head with his arms.

"And that's not all. This bug youkai happens to be friendly and has magic!" Daisuke pumped his hands in front of his chest and smiled with excitement as he continued, despite three adults did not shared the same emotion as he was. "He can make green fires out of his body and create this bright yellow light from his arm, which he used it to heal my knees," he pointed at his healed knees, where the lacerations on them before were completely gone.

"After that, he carried me through the woods and brought me to this road. And he's right over there-" Daisuke turned around and pointed at the dark, dirt road before them, only to found it empty with no signs of the friendly "youkai" everywhere when he focused his sight on the road. "Eh, where is he? He's gone?" Daisuke sounded disappointed that the "youkai" was not there anymore.

Keine, who was surprised and somewhat relieved that the boy was rescued by a friendly "youkai", realized that based on Daisuke's description, this "youkai" did not completely appeared to be almost shaped and looked like a human. In fact, all of the youkai she knew and met were almost always humanoid in appearance.

She decided to ask Daisuke more about this creature. "Umm, Daisuke-chan. This "youkai", what else do you know about... him?"

Daisuke turned to Keine and he began to put his right index finger at his chin, trying to remember anything else about the friendly "youkai". "Hmm, he has a name but he couldn't tell me because he can't speak. He can only nods and shakes his head to say 'Yes' and 'No', as well as can only chirps and... and trills. That's it," he shrugged.

The Human Village schoolteacher nodded at the boy's answer. Even though it was less than she expected, it was still an important information and now she knew that while this peculiar "youkai" could not speak, it also exhibiting sophisticated intelligence as it understood human language well and had not shown feral behaviors that were typical of normal youkai.

It might be a bit difficult to communicate with this "youkai" when it was unable to speak. Still, Keine was glad that no tragedy or fatal event had occurred tonight. "I think it's time for us to return to the village, everyone. Daisuke here probably needs plenty of rest now."

"Yes, you're right, Keine-sensei. Thank you for helping us finding our son," Daisuke's father stood up straight and bowed respectfully at the guardian of the Human Village. "I don't usually say this but I'm totally indebted to that...," he stared down toward his son, "...bug youkai. For saving Daisuke's life."

"It's alright, Takumi-sama. It is always been my duty to protect the village and the humans." Keine nodded with an assuring tone and smile. "If I happened to meet him outside of the village, I'll relay your thanks to him."

Daisuke's father, known as Takumi, gestured his son and wife to follow him to the village. "Come, let's go home. Misaki and Kin are waiting for you at the house, son."

While the rest of the family moved forward to the village, with Keine following them closely from behind, the village guardian took one last look at the nearby forest, searching for something for a while but nothing came up from the woods before she turned her sight to the family before her.

Several meters from behind the group, the Awakened Collector emerged from hiding behind a tree within the edge of the forest and looked upon the humans that were walking away in the dirt road in front of him.

_What the... My HEAD looks like a big mushroom? How come nobody in the _Red Cliff_ told me about this!?_

* * *

**Author's Note: **

**You guys gotta admit, both the Collectors' and the Protheans' heads... they do look like mushrooms, right?**


	3. Close Encounter of a Demonic Insect

It had been more than 30 minutes since he "arrived" in this part of Earth that he did not recognize, which the Awakened Collector found it very strange after he had dealt with the "little" affair between the humans and their youkai offshoot cousins earlier. Where Atala saved the young human boy named Daisuke from being eaten by three youkai cannibals in the forest. He then took care of his injuries and then carried the child out of the woods to return him back to his parents near the village.

After that, he followed both the human family and the odd-looking blue-haired woman from the dirt road to their village, far from behind them. When he heard of the word "village" that came from Daisuke's mouth, Atala thought it would be another small human settlement that had those pre-fabricated "drop-module" houses that he always saw during one of his team's rescue operations when Reaper forces landed on the developing human colony of Chasca.

He sprinted pass them through the woods beside the dirt road until he arrived at an open field with a wide paddy field before it.

From the field, the Awakened Collector observed the twinkled lights that brightened the walls of many structures of varying sizes and shapes in front of his eyes. But what Atala saw in front his eyes, however, completely surprised him.

He ran towards a thick bush at the edge of the paddy field and quickly hid behind it. From outside of the settlement, he discovered the Human Village and all of its structures before him appeared to be more ancient and significantly less advanced. Kind of pre-industrial or medieval in the buildings' designs as all of them were built entirely out of wood, while some of them were covered with stone and plaster.

Not even a single sign of modern technology was seen in the village. No solar panels, wind turbines or hydrogen power generators were seen from this settlement. Nor even a microwave power receiver tower. Moreover, Atala did not see a single street light in the village and the lights that came from the settlement were produced by candles and lanterns, not by LEDs. The Awakened Collector might be surprised a bit if they were using the obsolete incandescent light bulbs.

Most of the buildings were closed except for a few that were still opened at night for some of the inhabitants that were strolling in the village's streets. There were people in those streets conducting commercial activities and communicating with each other, possibly between merchants and buyers. But what he found among these strollers in the village just made things even weirder for him.

_You... have GOT to be kidding me. _

Atala saw that one of them, a blonde-haired woman, happened to have nine furry tails at her... buttocks, and she wore a blue and white dress with a blue print on the front, white sock-like shoes with blue frills at the ankles, along with a strange-looking hat that had a pair of long, pointy and vertical cones. She appeared to be smiling happily as she walked down the street of the village while carrying a small wooden box with her right hand, via a red string that was tied tightly around the box.

The Awakened Collector eyed upon the peculiar nine-tailed woman until he saw the young human boy Daisuke, his parents and the blue-haired woman, without their wooden torches, were at the village's street. After they had said each other's good night and the human family went back to their home located in the center of the village, the blue-haired woman saw the nine-tailed person walked by in front of her.

What Atala did not know was that the nine-tailed woman was actually well-known to the blue-haired lady and the villagers.

**_## ## ## ## ## ## ##_**

"Ah, Ran-san. Good evening. You came here shopping for tofu tonight?" Keine greeted the kitsune shikigami, Yakumo Ran.

Ran stopped and spuned around towards the Human Village guardian with a joyful grin. "Oh, Keine-sensei! Yes, I want to prepare fried tofu as one of the main dishes for everyone at the house for dinner." She then raised the small wooden box and showed it for Keine to see.

She saw the wooden box Ran lifted and Keine instantly made a slightly surprised expression. "Wow! Are you girls having a banquet tonight, Ran?"

The kitsune shikigami chuckled. "Don't be silly. It's just a simple dinner. There's nothing so grand about it."

Keine crossed her arms on her chest and smiled playfully at Ran. "And yet not everyone in Gensokyo thinks that's true, Ran. We all know how _above normal_ her appetite is."

Ran slightly frowned and smiled weakly at the statement, as she knew what Keine meant. "Don't tell me you really buy everything what was written on _that_ today's tengu newspaper?"

Keine shook her head a little in disagreement while smiling. "No, not really. But when it comes to Yakumo Yukari, however, almost everything about her being... _peculiar_ had almost became common knowledge. Despite that she's an enigmatic and wise sage. And a little... _seasoned_, perhaps."

"_Seasoned_, huh?" Ran slowly wiped her forehead with her left free hand. "But not everything about her is bad. Not really. Yukari-sama does shows her good side, though. Even if not most of the time, and that she sometimes get on someone else's nerves."

The village guardian laughed a bit. "I know! But still..." At first, Keine put on an honest smiling face at Ran when she met her in the village and when they were talking about the youkai sage presently. Then, something came into existence in Keine's mind regarding of what happened earlier outside of the village.

"Still..." Keine's face slowly morphed into a worried and sad look for a second as she remembered the incident where the boy Saito Daisuke was almost killed by three youkai in the forest. Keine felt very sorry for the boy who had went through such a frightening, and possibly traumatic, experiences at such a young age.

Keine then remembered the bug "youkai" that had saved Daisuke, who healed the boy's wounds, carried him through the woods and brought him to his parents. She was relieved that the bug "youkai" itself (or _himself_, if she followed the boy's words) was not hostile, and probably a shy one as it did not made an attempt to reveal itself before her and the young boy's parents.

Yet Daisuke's description of his "youkai" rescuer's inhuman appearance surprised, and at the same time unnerved Keine to a small degree as such youkai like that was never heard of, encountered nor documented.

She was worried if there were many others like it in Gensokyo and the thought that some of its kind were probably not as friendly as the one Daisuke had met made Keine uneasy.

That was when Ran noticed the sudden change of Keine's expression; from being relaxed and amiable, to an almost grave and serious one. "Keine, what's wrong?"

Keine slowly turned her head left and right, in order to make sure no one else was on the street to hear the next and important topic of conversation between them. She then moved her head closer to Ran, inches away from the shikigami's face. "Ran, are all youkai in Gensokyo always appear almost like... humans?" She whispered to her.

Ran blinked her eyes and confused at such strange question for a moment. She nonetheless answered it honestly. "Well, yes we are and you knew that. But... why are you asking me that question?"

"Because half an hour ago, a young boy from this village, Saito Daisuke, was chased and was almost eaten by three carnivorous youkai in the forest outside of the Human Village. Somewhere beside the road leading straight to the Road of Liminality." Keine explained in a low voice.

Ran gasped in shock and simultaneously covered her mouth with her left hand when she heard such news from her. "My goodness! Is he alright?"

Keine nodded in respond. "He's fine. Just before they could eat him, a friendly bug youkai appeared from behind Daisuke and frightened the other youkai away. It... _He_ then healed Daisuke's wounds and carried him through the forest to the dirt road. Afterwards, the bug youkai placed him on the road and released Daisuke to me and his parents while we were searching for the boy, just before he disappeared into the woods."

"Bug youkai? Friendly? Could that be Wriggle Nightbug, Keine? Because people sometimes could confused her for a boy because of her clothing." Ran pointed out.

Keine shook her head. "No, it wasn't Wriggle, Ran. I'm very sure of it."

Ran raised a brow in confusion at Keine's answer. "How can you be sure it's not her?" She then hit upon a realization regarding Keine's earlier query. "Wait. Is it got to do with the question you asked me just now?"

"Yes. From what Daisuke had told me and his parents, the bug youkai that saved him looked _completely_ nothing of almost-human appearance." Ran had her eyes widen a little at the information the village guardian just told to her.

Keine continued to recall what she remembered earlier from the boy's story. "He described the youkai as being tall, stood and walked on two feet. His body was covered with exoskeletal scales, three fingers on each of his two arms, had six eyes and a big head that shaped like a mushroom. And that's not all, Daisuke also said the bug youkai had magic, which he used it to create green flames on his body to intimidate the three youkai and to heal the boy's injuries."

"I see." Ran nodded. She almost could not believe what Keine told her: A bug youkai that appeared entirely not human and had magical abilities. Keine's description of the youkai's appearance caused Ran to instantly imagined him as being both intimidating and should not be underestimated. _Well, maybe. Until we've seen what he's capable of._ It also piqued the interest and curiosity of the kitsune shikigami as it was the first time she heard something bizarre and unique like this.

However, Ran also noticed Keine's worried tone when she told her about the peculiar bug youkai. "Keine, you did mentioned this bug youkai was friendly. That's a good thing, right? And yet you sounded uneasy when you told me about him." Ran asked with a skeptical look.

Keine avoided making eye contact with Ran by looking to the ground and bowed her a bit with an upset expression, while her right hand grasped her left upper arm's. "It's just... I'm worried what if there's more of his kind out there... and if some of them aren't as friendly as he is."

Ran cocked her head at her and frowned a little. "Keine, have you ever thought that bug youkai probably the only one of his kind in Gensokyo? Unique like many others out there, like Kogasa, Kokoro or Nazrin?" she asked.

She placed her left hand at Keine's right shoulder to relieve her of anxiety. Keine lifted her face and saw the reassuring smile Ran was giving to her. "Look, you're worrying too much. If what you've said about the bug youkai being friendly is true, then there's nothing to be concern about. Isn't it? He probably wouldn't want to hurt anybody, humans and youkai, and would like to avoid hostilities as possible."

The Human Village guardian sighed a bit as she reflected the words Ran had said to her. _She's right. I need to be optimistic about this. There's no way there could be more of this bug youkai out there. And besides, he's good. He saved Daisuke. That should've proved something about him. _After that moment of thought, Keine spoke up. "You're correct, Ran. I maybe have been overthinking of it without considering other possibilities. Especially the good ones. Thanks."

"The pleasure is mine, Keine-sensei." Ran nodded with a soft grin.

As soon as after Ran acknowledged her thanks, Keine had her eyes focused on the wooden box that contained the tofu Ran wanted to serve for dinner. "Ran-san, I don't mean to be rude, but I think you should head back home before Yukari starts to complain about why the dinner being late served," she reminded the kitsune shikigami with a smile.

Ran politely waved her hand dismissively, "Oh, don't worry about it. It's not like Yukari-sama will face starvation just because the dinner is served a few minutes late. Besides, if she starts cranky, Chen will try to cheer Yukari up to get the hungry thought off her mind." She grinned convincingly at the village guardian.

_-0-0-0-_

_At the same time..._

"Ran-chaaaaan! Where are you? I'm starving _heeeeere_." The youkai sage Yakumo Yukari groaned weakly in hunger as she rested the left side of her head on her left elbow, which she placed it on a table.

Chen, who was Ran's nekomata shikigami, sat at the opposite table facing Yukari with a bored look with her chin rested on her interlocked fingers. "Please be patient, Yukari-sama. The tofu shop probably has a long line of customers now, and Ran-sama may have to queue to get one since the tofu sold there is very yummy. She'll be here in a few minutes," she calmly tried to assure the whining youkai sage.

"But I don't wanna wait a few minutes! I'm so hungry that my tummy starts to growl so loud that it can be heard outside of the mansion," Yukari complained while she held her abdomen with both of her hands as her stomach let out an audible growl. "I bet she's engrossed in a lengthy chat with someone else in the village to the point she totally forgets our dinner," she accused with a pouty face.

"Don't say that, Yukari-sama! I'm sure Ran-sama is trying to come home quickly as possible," Chen said, trying to restore confidence to her master's master. "Why won't just use your gap ability to see what is she doing now?" she suggested.

"Cheeeeen! When I'm this hungry and have very little energy, I can't even lift myself off this table. Let alone using my ability to manipulate boundaries now." Yukari pointed out as she began to bury her head onto her crossed arms on the table.

"Hmm." The nekomata shikigami was in deep thought, trying to find a way to bury the hungry thought from Yukari, to keep her preoccupied while waiting for Ran to come home. _And possibly to suppress Yukari-sama's hungry feeling. It could be done if she... is busy with... _Chen's suddenly had a bright, merry grin illuminated her face. "I know! We can play games while we wait for Ran-sama!" she exclaimed.

"Ehhh!?" Yukari quickly lifted her face that buried within her crossed arms, revealing her incredulous expression to the happy-looking nekomata shikigami. "Chen... you-you're not serious, aren't ya?"

Chen quickly rose from her cushion seat and stood up confidently. "Of course I am! I know one or two games that can be played with little energy and you don't have to move around much. The games I know of are dajare*, shogi* and hanafuda*!" she called out ecstatically.

"N-n-no, Chen! Not now! I..."

"Just stay here, Yukari-sama, I'll get the shogi set and the cards now. It won't be long!" Chen immediately went to open the dining room's sliding shoji door and ran excitedly in the corridor of the mansion, leaving the youkai sage alone and sat frozen in the room in complete disbelief with her mouth gaped.

Yukari slumped over the table as she rested her chin on her crossed arms that she placed on the table, with a glum and exhausted face. "_Uwaaaaa_! Ran, you faulty program! Where are youuuu!?"

_-0-0-0-_

"Anyway, I should head home now, Keine-sensei. I think Yukari would be interested to hear about this bug youkai." Ran bowed to the Human Village guardian.

"Yes, I think she would." Keine returned the bow.

After both of them had said each other's good night, Ran walked out from the Human Village's center while Keine went to her home located in the middle of the village.

As Ran walked out of the village, she suddenly stopped in her track and spun her head to a certain thick bush at the edge of the paddy field, located outside of the village's center. The kitsune shikigami narrowed her eyes a bit to the particular bush for a few seconds, before she began to walk a few steps, floated in the air and flied away to her home.

As for the peculiar thick bush, however, there was nothing strange nor special behind it, because the Awakened Collector Atala was long gone before both Keine and Ran finished their earlier conversation in the village's center.

_**## ## ## ## ## ## ##**_

_Okay, so it must've been some kind of a strange human counterculture which involves body modification, genetic engineering and absolute rejection of their own species' identity. Which it was established by a group of bodily-modified humans complete with their own unique, though somewhat very bizarre, subculture and mindset. A significantly different society, completely separated and opposite from the baseline humans and their mainstream norms and mores._

Atala was contemplating in regards to the possible and best theory of the origin of "youkai" offshoots on Earth prior to the discovery of Prothean ruins by human explorers on the neighboring Red Planet, while traversing through the thick forest in order to find a suitable spot to stay to make camp. Except without a campfire, a tent, nor a sleeping bag.

As a synthetic being, he did not need the warmth from the heat of the fire, and feel tired and comfort to the softness of a sleeping bag's blanket and ground pad like any organics; although Atala could "sleep" if he chose to for conserving energy, and to gather up, organize and optimize all the information he learned.

_Thus, a separate, offshoot subspecies of humankind was created after their numbers had grown from hundreds of thousands to a few millions within several decades. And possibly after much of the human society on Earth acknowledged and classified them as a subspecies of humankind, and eventually led to the entire subspecies to be known as "youkai". Yes, that's probably it._ Atala nodded at that thought, completely agreed to himself of the youkai origin theory he just made.

However, he could not rule out another theory he made earlier which was related to the time where Prothean scientists and researchers on Mars from the last cycle had probably tampered with some of the prehistoric humans' DNA using advanced genetic engineering and modification.

If so, for what purpose? Was it purely for their insatiable and unfathomable scientific curiosity? Or as some kind of an uplifting strategy, to be a tool or weapon for the Empire's military against the Reapers? Or when it was too late for them, it was then used as a way for the Protheans to exact vengeance on the Reapers in the next cycle if total extinction of his entire race was inevitable?

_Now, I just need to find out why there's a small, isolated and horribly backward human settlement located in the middle of fucking nowhere on Earth that's completely has no trace of radio signals of any kind, untouched by modern development, undamaged by war, and unnoticed by the Reap-_

**SPLASH!**

The Awakened Collector looked down and saw that his right foot had stepped into a watery mud puddle. _Guess I should also look down the ground besides looking up front while walking AND overthinking simultaneously._

Atala swung his right foot back and forth in the air to get rid of the mud on it before moving on. After a few minutes of walking, he came out of the woods and found himself upon the side of a straight forest road before him. He turned his head to the right and saw nothing but trees at the end of a curved road far away from him.

The moment after the Awakened Collector turned his head to the right, he heard a faint melodic voice that came from his left. Like someone was singing.

He turned around and saw a dim yellow light along with a small glowing red orb located 30 meters or so from him right across the forest road. He could also smell the faint characteristic aroma of grilled meat that came from the same direction as the faint singing voice and the lights. Out of curiosity, Atala walked towards that place.

As the Awakened Collector walked closer to it, and the singing suddenly stopped, what he saw seemed to be some sort of a parked, disassembled wooden vehicle with a roof and two wheels. To Atala, it looked like some kind of a cart. It had a plain wooden bench, a pair of long U-shaped handles in front, and a 4-piece red fabric hung from the edge of the roof across the side of the cart with three written symbols and an illustration of a serpentine fish.

There was also a red lantern that was lit and hung beside the roof, which was also had the same three written symbols on it, albeit vertically from top to bottom than the ones on the fabrics that went from left to right.

Still, after he reached the spot and stood in front of the cart, Atala took this opportunity to scan the writings on the banner with his omni-tool for a linguistic translation algorithm to find similarity, accuracy and correlation of words and grammar used between the pronunciation and writing of human Japanese language. But three symbols on a cloth were not enough, far away from close. He would need to scan and collect more Japanese writings for his translation algorithm to complete.

Because he was a few inches taller than the cart itself, Atala had to bent his body forward with his large head went through the fabric, which he then took a look around the cart's interior.

There was a simple rectangular-shaped charcoal grill with some of the charcoals in it were still smoldering. Beside the grill was a rectangular-shaped metal pot with six small containers; each of those containers possessed six different ingredients immersed in broth*. Each of them differed in their shape; such as where one of them was shaped like a tube, while another resembled a rectangular-shaped cake.

He activated his omni-tool and made a sweeping motion over the hot pot from right to left to scan the ingredients. A few seconds later, the results came in: Each of the ingredients were made entirely of fungi stuffed in leaf vegetables*, root vegetables*, starches*, wheat*, fish* and legumes*. All of them were edible for human consumption.

To the left of him was an open cabinet full of ceramic and glass cups, along with two different plates made of ceramic and wood that were stacked neatly. On the ground beside the cart and in front of his left, was a wooden bucket full of water with several serpentine fish inside.

_I've to guess that the serpent-like fishes over there are this food stand's main dish._

However, what was strange about the food cart was that the owner was no where to be found in the vendor. Then his ears caught the drifting sound of a young girl humming like the melody of a song that came from behind the cart.

When Atala began to motion his head forward a bit, his inadvertently moved his left leg until Atala's left shin bumped into the bench. The collision made the Awakened Collector slightly off balanced, which instantly caused him to straighten his body on reflex, and led to the middle ridge of the top of his thick, layered carapace head knocked against the vendor's foldable hinged roof.

**THUD-TAK!**

**_## ## ## ## ## ## ##_**

The operator of the grilled lamprey vendor, the night sparrow youkai Mystia Lorelei, was humming a sweet tune to herself while busy washing the dirty dishes at a large wooden basin filled with water, located not too far behind her food cart. Even though the temperature at night was always cool, Mystia could still sweating just by doing such simple, menial work.

Mystia blew out a tired breath and wiped a layer of sweat off her forehead with her right forearm, as both of her white sleeves were rolled up to her elbows so they do not get wet while washing the dishes. There was a white towel placed at the nape of her neck to absorb droplets of sweat forming around the neck.

"Ara, so many customers came to my stall. I've got a lot of profit tonight!" she said joyfully as she arranged the washed plates on top of the other next to the basin.

That was when she caught the sound of something or someone collided with the wooden pieces of her cart. Mystia turned her head back to her food stand and saw a vague figure standing in front of the cart's table.

"Oooh! Another customer! Wait just a moment, please!" she called out to her would-be customer.

After Mystia emptied the remaining washed plates and placed them next to the wooden basin and the stacked dishes, she stood up, bent her back a little and went towards her cart. She grabbed the towel around her neck and swiping it over her sweat-streaked face while walking slowly. Although her eyes were closed as she was swiping her face with her towel, she instinctively knew which direction to aim for.

The night sparrow youkai stopped right in front of the outdoor kitchen and she quickly lowered the towel from her face, revealing Mystia's cheerful expression and closed eyes. "Hello! Welcome to my lamprey eel sta-"

When she opened her eyes to look at her "customer", Mystia's words stopped there as she gazed upon the figure in front with her eyes widen in extreme surprise and silent.

For a split second, her mind went blank with shock because she was completely did not expect something as startling and abnormal like what Mystia saw before her eyes. The "person" before Mystia looked entirely nothing like any human or any youkai she had seen in all her life.

To be honest, she had never seen such a creature like this. Its entire body was covered with pale brown insect scales, had broad shoulders, distinctively big mushroom-shaped head with no mouth and nose, six glowing pupil-less eyes and two pairs of rudimentary limbs sticking out from the side of its chest.

Basically, the _thing_'s appearance was absolutely unnatural, monstrous and very disconcerting.

As for Atala, before him was a small human female child, or an _almost-human_ female child, with grey eyes, pink hair, pointed feathery ears and a pair of light pink bird-like wings with purple highlights at her back. The girl was dressed in white and brown clothing with a brown cap. What's more, both her hat and dress contained numerous bird-shaped ornaments. Judging by certain unusual physical characteristics of the young girl, the Awakened Collector was sure that girl before him was most certainly a youkai.

"KYAAA!" Mystia screamed with a fearful expression. She impulsively turned around and scampered off towards the woods ahead of her. Shortly afterwards, Mystia tripped her foot and fell to the grassy ground face-first. When she quickly got up and turned around, the night sparrow youkai saw that the monstrous figure left the table and it was walking to the rear side of her cart.

"N-n-no!" Frightened, she started to walk backwards slowly until her right heel stumbled over the edge of the wooden basin she put earlier. Mystia lost her balance, flailed and fell backwards into the water-filled basin, soaking herself and her dress wet.

Yet that did not ease off her fearfulness from the terrifying creature as she saw it stood beside her food cart. The bipedal insect-like monstrosity was easily towering over herself and her cart in height. Mystia could also able to see clearly from the vendor's light just how freakishly looking the illuminated full-plated bug creature was when she gazed upon its entire grotesque appearance.

The night sparrow youkai was scared witless and trembled with fear as the tall demonic insectoid being was still staring intently at her with those six soulless, glowing eyes. Mystia did not know what would it do to her or what it was capable of, but she was sure it must be very unsightly and terrifying to look at.

"Ple... Please! Whatever you are, I beg you! Please spare my life!" Mystia begged the creature in front of her for mercy as her eyes were swelled up in tears.

While Mystia was begging at Atala, due to his thought process was much quicker than regular organic races except the salarians, the geth, and some of the human Systems Alliance's Alliance Infiltration Unit AIs, he was contemplating over the variety of dishes served on the food cart, and the young youkai girl who was sitting in the large basin in fear.

_She was serving dishes that are organic-based and fishes for human customers and possibly other non-cannibal youkai in this place. __What's more, the nine-tailed woman I saw earlier in the village was a youkai and she seemed quite friendly with that blue-haired lady._ Atala reasonably thought about the cultural discrepancy among general youkai population.

Atala concluded that there was a possibility not all youkai were hostile towards humans and committing cannibalism. That there were some who wanted to live peacefully among their human cousins. The nine-tailed woman and the winged little girl before him were testaments of his own assessment.

The moment after Mystia pleaded the intimidating living being for mercy, the tall insect creature began to raise his right arm and extended it right at her. It then opened its three-fingered hand and aimed its palm at Mystia. In an instant, her entire body was covered with green semitransparent aura.

"Eeek!" Mystia exclaimed as she was shrouded by the strange green aura. She then felt the weight of her body decreased dramatically until it became as light as a feather.

She was lifted slowly into the air with water dripping down from her wet clothes. Mystia was then brought away towards the creature steadily from the wooden basin.

After a very short distance from the basin, the night sparrow youkai was lowered down gently until her feet touched the ground, and her weight instantly returned to normal right after the green aura that surround her body disappeared.

Mystia was left speechless and truly bewildered by the demonic bug creature's act of magically helping her get off from the basin, as well as assisted her to stood upright on the ground.

Next, it walked towards a tree next to it and grabbed a low tree branch with its right hand. Then she saw a bright, malevolent reddish light instantly surrounded its left arm, and a blade of glaring red fire instantaneously materialized over its left hand. The creature used the blade to slice off the branch at its base in a single swing, and then cut it into several pieces of woods.

Mystia was amazed by the sight before her as the demonic insect-like being was able to create a finely controlled flame from its arm and shaped it into the form of a blade. She assumed that the creature must be very powerful, and quite possibly lethal, either in the magical arts or its inherent supernatural abilities.

The creature picked up all of the woods he had chopped and dropped them in a pile, on a wide, flat and unvegetated ground located more than 10 feet from Mystia's cart. It then arranged the woods into cone-shaped pyramid. Once it was finished, the creature took a few steps back and its left arm was again surrounded by the same unique radiant light, only this time it was of warm orange-yellow color.

It then extended its left arm toward the wood pile and released a fireball at them. Mystia jumped to her feet in startle as the wooden pyramid burst into flame.

As she stared down at the flaming pile of woods, the first thought that came into Mystia's mind was, _Did it... Did it just light a fire for me? _She could not believe what had just happened to her.

_First, it lifted me up from the basin using magic. Then it went to cut a branch with his blade of fire, and the next it shot a fireball at the woods to create fire for myself._ Mystia did not expect that the terrifying monstrous creature with magical abilities was actually benign and it did not really seem to want to hurt her.

She changed her sight from the fire to the creature, and saw that it had fixed its gaze at the night sparrow youkai. Mystia became nervous at the pupil-less stare it gave at her but despite that, she mustered up her courage to express her gratitude to the creature.

"A-ah... um, th-thank you," she nervously said.

The demonic bipedal insect creature responded her with a trill, which made Mystia jumped a bit. It then turned its back on Mystia and started walking pass her food cart.

The creature went across the forest road, walked into the woods and disappeared in the darkness, leaving the wet night sparrow youkai standing dumbfounded.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**_Dajare*_, _shogi*_ and _hanafuda*_ are actually traditional Japanese games; dajare is a type of word play game, shogi is a strategy board game similar to Western chess, while hanafuda is a type of card game.**

**As for the (oden) hot pot Atala had scanned, the ingredients in it were: _Cabbage rolls stuffed with shiitake mushrooms*_, _sliced daikon radishes*_, _chikuwabu*_, _konnyaku*_, _kamaboko fish cakes*_, and _tofu*_.**

**Ah crap. Now I'm getting hungry just by writing these (mouthwatering) foods.**


End file.
